This invention is directed to a new and improved sheet connector or the like useful for coupling contacts of a first electrical device to the contacts of a second electrical device.
It is still conventional practice to couple contacts of one device to the contacts of a second device by soldering wires to the contacts. More recently other schemes have been proposed such as a plurality of electrically conductive plastic or rubber pads supported by an insulator, e.g., along slots on the sides thereof or in holes formed therein. In this case the contacts of the devices to be connected are positioned on opposite ends of the pads and the assembly is then held together in a conventional manner.
While the aforementioned schemes are quite useful they are expensive due to the costs associated therewith. Obviously soldering is time consuming and thus labor costs are high. In the second scheme manufacturing costs are high because of the steps needed to construct the insulator support and to then fill the slots or holes thereof in a molding process.
Accordingly a new and improved connector was needed which would be comparatively inexpensive in terms of materials used as well as in the cost of manufacture.
The present invention provides a connector which is both simple and inexpensive to manufacture and extremely simple to use in order to couple contacts of one electrical device to contacts of a second electrical device.
The connector of the present invention can be termed an isolated path connector in that is exhibits a low through resistance in a volume between aligned opposing surface contact of electrical contacts on opposite sides of the sheet and exhibits a higher isolation resistance in all volumes thereof at a distance greater than about the thickness of the sheet. Thus electrical contacts positioned apart from each other on the same side of the sheet at a distance greater than the thickness of the sheet are electrically isolated from each other even though another contact on the opposite side of the sheet and aligned with respect to one of the first of said contacts will be electrically coupled together.
In view of the above mentioned properties of the connector of this invention it is now possible to make electrical contact between a plurality of aligned contacts of first and second electrical devices by merely placing the sheet connector of this invention between the contacts so that surface contact is made between the contacts and the sheet. In this invention surface contact or touching need only be made to the sheet and compression of the volume of the sheet between opposing contacts is not necessary to achieve conduction, e.g. electrical contacts need only be screened on the sheet to effect contacting.